When I am going through a grocery store gathering survival food, I get some strange looks from people close enough to hear me muttering under my breath as I discount items. Phrases like “not enough calories”, “needs more fat”, not enough carbs”, and the like roll off my tongue frequently. The truth of the matter is that what we consider to be a healthy diet in normal times is probably inadequate in a high stress, very active, crisis situation. There is a reason we like carbs, and fats, and sugars, and that reason is our body needs these things. The human palate developed in times when being physically active and dealing with life threatening events was the norm, and when a steady supply of food was not a guarantee. Hence the urge to get all we can when we can, which leads to rampant obesity in modern sedentary times but is adaptive to survival in harder times.
Like I said, way up there on my #goals wishlist. Seriously need to make sure if I get this, it goes into a forever home, as it’d be a complete waste to get it or something like it before, but boy is a wood burning stove like this an amazing thing to have. I don’t even cook, but I do eat, and have always found food is tastier when you cook it the “old fashioned way.” Yum.

This list by necessity is very basic, and I am not claiming to cover every contingency or even a specific common threat in your area. I have weighted this list in general order of importance to let you hit the important things first and go from there, but depending on your locale and situation some elements may be more important or less. This is a guide; use your head and common sense.

For experienced preppers like Daisy Luther, founder of the blog The Organic Prepper and the online survival goods store Preppers Market, ready-to-go freeze-dried meals are more of a last line of defense than anything else. Though she insists these products “have their place,” her version of long-term food storage sounds more like a way of life, a process of slowly building up a pantry that will enable her to feed her family as healthfully and economically as possible. Sometimes that means stocking up on the freeze-dried stuff, or buying whatever’s on sale at the supermarket; but it’s also about living in sync with the seasons, growing food in her own garden and using timetested home preservation methods—like canning and dehydrating—to ensure she always has food on hand.
I just read your article, its great your helping folks out like this sharing your knowledge and experience. Ive been prepping now for about 5 years slowly growing our preps for our family but I noticed a couple of items I really think you should add to your list if you dont mind my suggestions. Not that I know anything you dont but if we all share ideas we can help each other. which is my first point. If you have a couple of friends you can trust, work with them and each work on specific lists to grow your… Read more »

Wheat can be cooked as is but most people will grind the wheat for flour. My favorite manual grain mill is the Wondermill Junior. Grinding flour is hard work, so you will probably prefer an electric mill, too. Wondermill and NutriMill both make very good electric mills in the lower $200 price range. I found my electric mill in a second hand store for about $30, so you might also start checking places like Goodwill and even online — Craigslist or eBay.

3. Basic bulk ingredients with long shelf lives are a must. Wheat, rice, and beans are versatile, when you add a variety of spices, herbs, and other ingredients and will last for decades. There are food shortages around the world, droughts here in the U.S. that are affecting food production, and it’s likely we’ll experience either shortages, much higher prices, or both in the future.
Believers in QAnon—a conspiracy theory based on a series of internet clues posted by an anonymous character named “Q” that posits a world in which Trump and the military are engaged in ceaseless, secret war with globalist Democratic pedophiles—think the text could mark the start of “The Storm,” a fantastical MAGA dream in which Trump’s political enemies will be arrested and tried at military tribunals.
Survivalism is a primarily American movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers) who actively prepare for emergencies, including possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales from local to international. Survivalism also encompasses preparation for personal emergencies, such as job loss or being stranded in the wild or under adverse weather conditions. The emphasis is on self-reliance, stockpiling supplies, and gaining survival knowledge and skills. Survivalists often acquire emergency medical and self-defense training, stockpile food and water, prepare to become self-sufficient, and build structures such as survival retreats or underground shelters that may help them survive a catastrophe.

I have been storing firewood. I also have two camp stoves, a single burner and a double burner. When things first fall out, my intention is to use the wood in one or more rocket stoves to heat water. Hot water will be a necessity for sanitation, utensil washing and general hygiene. The camp stoves will be used for cooking. That will continue until the fuel is exhausted. By that time I hope to have gained enough experience that I will be able to modulate the wood burning rockets stoves so that cooking on them will not be that much of a problem. I also plan to use wood burning to distill water as I anticipate that we will need to use ocean water for our water supply unless we just happen to have a wet year such as we are experiencing this year. If it were last year, we definitely would be distilling ocean water. Ocean water doesn’t have to be distilled for washing utensils, hands and clothing. It must be boiled however because there will be all sorts of stuff floating in the ocean that you wouldn’t want to touch let along wash with. Drinking water and water for face washing and teeth brushing will have to be distilled as one cannot drink salt water. I would recommend dehydrated foods for getting used to outdoor cooking, but for long term food you are going to need beans and rice. You can store a lot of calories in a small space for a long time with those two items. Beans and rice together release the protein in the beans to supplement the meat you eat. I always wondered why Mexican food featured beans and rice at the same meal. I thought it was overkill on carbs. Then I found out that the rice released the protein in the beans which otherwise was locked and unavailable.

Very useful information. Thank you for sharing that. We are hunters as we as grow a garden, we can most everything. I also have fruit trees and bushes, and that is canned as well. We have emergency kits stashed in a few locations, undisclosed, and money. I pray we will never need to use any of it but I am prepared. I really appreciate your helpful articles and will make sure to tell others about this site.

The reason the vacuum sealing system’s up on this list is because I feel food has a much longer “shelf life” so to speak when its vacuum sealed before being thrown in the freezer. Used to have a lot of power outages when we lived in Toronto, and each time our food would thaw out a little it’d taste worse and worse – except for the one vacuum sealed slab of meat we got from a neighbour which I think withstood 2-3 power outages (one which lasted 4-5 days) and tasted as though it was vacuum packed the day before. I’ve also heard of people vacuum packing rice into smaller one-serving portions, and have always thought that a great idea for cases you might want to throw a bunch into a pack and go, or just generally extend the shelf life of your food/prevent rats and mice from getting into things. Necessary? No. Definitely still something I want, though.

I first read this article two years ago, and started laying in the suggested items over a period of several weeks. Reading other articles on this site led me to start stockpiling water, vitamins, and personal-care items; I also took on a second part-time job to add to my emergency savings account. Unfortunately, I lost my full-time job several months ago with no warning and am still job-hunting, but I’m not worried about it. This experience is so much less stressful with a fully stocked fridge, freezer, and pantry, the aforementioned other supplies, and plenty of cash in the bank. Only a few family members know that I prep…everyone else can’t figure out why I’m so calm. Thank you, Gaye!
Call ahead to the meat dept.of your store and ask them if they can hold suet or fat for you, what days they ate most likely to have it in inventory, and whether or not it has to be special ordered in the quantity you need. You can also ask for meat trimmings as that is the extra fat that gets cut off the cuts being packaged for the sales floor. There’s often a lot of meat attached to these, and you can get them cheap.
If the men on the blog Doomsday Preppers seem inordinately preoccupied with some distant future in which everything falls apart, he explains, it’s because that imagined scenario represents a moment when they get to feel like they’re actually useful. “I’ve got a chainsaw and a pickup truck and a little cabin in the woods and I can get my assault weapon out and I can be important,” he explains of the mindset. “I’m not really useful until something goes wrong.”
Our testers unanimously voted MH the best tasting, even going as far as to buy some to use in everyday life. Nutritionists we spoke with thought MH had the best overall nutritional value, too, with tons of meat-based proteins and fiber. It’s also the most convenient to cook. No external dishes needed, just pour some (ideally boiling) water into the pouch, let it cook, eat, then trash.
Keep in mind that Legacy didn’t necessarily intend to create a product only for vegetarians. It was designed as a base for people to add their own protein, salt, seasonings, and ingredients. Which means Legacy requires more “cooking” than many of the other options we looked at, to the point where some of our testers didn’t think it qualified as “emergency food.”
To ease your mind from the rising tension between nuclear-capable countries and worries of a civil unrest, investing a decent amount of money for this underground survival shelter may serve as one of your best life-saving decisions. At a price of $200,000, you get a Radius Engineering Survival Shelter with fiberglass shells that outlasts steel shells and concrete shells. Apart from the extremely tough walls, Radius also build their bunkers with air purifiers with a UV-radiation sterilization system too.
The largest doomsday bunkers in the United States are not only for civilians. In 1992, a Washington Post writer by the name of Ted Gup exposed the hidden bunker at Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. For decades the retreat of government and Presidents, the resort has a massive bunker located below the West Virginia wing complete with an auditorium large enough for the House of Representatives and a separate space for the Senate Chamber. Holding a television studio, hospital and living quarters for all members of Congress in the event of a nuclear war. Tours are now available of the bunker to visitors of the resort.
[sg_popup id=”2″ event=”onload”][/sg_popup]“Be prepared” is a pretty broad order. Prepared for what? How prepared are we talking about, here? If you are new to prepping and readiness as a component in your lifestyle, one of your first actions will probably be to take stock and compare yourself and your stash of supplies to veteran preppers or friends. What you find may discourage you.
Obviously, solar panels by themselves are quite useful things to have, and since both Broadwing and Ned in the comments suggested that Goal Zero is quite overpriced, I’d be remiss to leave out mentioning another, more price-sensitive option. Ned recommended Aukey as a brand that makes solar power equivalents to Goal Zero gear for far cheaper. In his words, Aukey “make the exact same thing for a fraction of the cost.”
Counter-terrorism expert Michael Clarke, who specialises in defence studies, has urged the public to be ready for â€œcyber warfareâ€ within the next two or three weeks. He said: â€I suspect Russia will choose not to respond in military terms. But cyber warfare is highly likely. "It will be an attack on national infrastructure, not just upsetting city firms, but getting inside the transport system, or the health system, or air traffic control. It could affect everyone."
If the power grid goes down and water isn’t running, sanitation and waste removal becomes something of value as it can lead to cross-contamination of the foodstuffs and water. Sanitation is of utmost importance to the successful storage of foodstuff and necessities for a proper storage shelter. Things like baby wipes can be extremely assistive in keeping the germs at bay, and they can be thrown in the fire afterward.

To be truthful, my initial goal with this article was to respond to readers who were just getting started and wanted a shopping list of things to buy for their food storage pantry. I also wanted to compile a checklist that more experienced preppers could use to compare what they had to what they needed. My goal can pretty much be summed up by saying that I wanted to write about getting started with food storage the easy way. No frills, no fluff – just a common sense list of food items to get you started.

It turns out that vitamin B12, which is used in most, if not all, of the body’s systems (like neurological, cardiac, etc.) is only found in animal products. All vegans should therefore take supplements, according to the guidelines. If we are in an emergency situation where we can’t get meat, fish, cheese, yogurt, etc., we probably all would need supplementation! It’s critical to have enough, and the effects of not having it are irreversible. (Try dementia, tardive dyskinesia, and on and on.) Yikes! Add it to the list. Oh, well. B12 is small and really cheap.
Very, very well said MissKitty. You’ve reminded me of some of the natural disasters that have happened which did have a direct effect on us. The Yellowstone Caldera is a real worry but what can we really do about a potential disaster of that magnitude. That would almost be a planet killer. And I do agree 100% with you about “THEM” trying to keep “US” distracted and divided. Hegelian tactics. Bread and circuses. Cause and affect. Then solution. Cause the problem and then miraculously provide the solution. Orwell may have had it pretty much correct but I don’t think even he realized how really bad it could get. Even in recent memory I recall the Iceland volcano disrupting air travel and that was a very small event. Some of the other ones that effected the climate were Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines which dropped global temps for 2 or 3 years. The 1883 explosion of Krakatoa. That was not that long ago. The four years following the explosion were unusually cold, and the winter of 1887-1888 included powerful blizzards. Record snowfalls were recorded worldwide. You mentioned Tambora in 1815. It produced mid-summer frosts in New York State and June snowfalls in New England, Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1600, the Huaynaputina in Peru erupted. Tree ring studies show that 1601 was cold. Russia had its worst famine in 1601-1603. From 1600 to 1602, Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia had exceptionally cold winters. The wine harvest was late in 1601 in France, and in Peru and Germany, wine production collapsed. Peach trees bloomed late in China, and Lake Suwa in Japan froze early. These are just some of the worst volcanic events and if people are interested they can go to wikipedia and look it up themselves. For me the point of this is that the global weather system is rather fragile and delicate and doesn’t take all that much to disrupt it. I’m sure the “planners” have taken this into account before they start throwing a whole bunch of nukes around and stirring up so much dust that we have an extended nuclear winter. Unless their plan IS to try and get rid of as many of us as they can in one fell swoop. I’ve heard figures of 500 million bandied about as the ideal population limit for this planet but as I can’t get anyone to confirm, who knows. The best that any of us can do is to be as well prepared for the potential disasters that we CAN deal with.
Each of us has personal fears. It might be poor health. It might be a precarious job situation. There are a great number of individual calamities that can befall us, however, the fact that you have just been fired from your job, while I am concerned as I would be for anybody who has lost employment through no fault of his own, it doesn’t affect me. It doesn’t affect my neighborhood. It doesn’t affect the distribution of food and utilities.

We were poo-pooed when we said category SIX hurricanes were on the way, now this: A new analysis of global hurricane data since 1980 shows the number of storms with winds over 124 mph has doubled, and those with winds over 155 mph has tripled. As the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season begins, scientists are worried that U.S. coastal communities could face more super storms with winds, storm surges and rainfall so intense that current warning categories donâ€™t fully capture the threat. -- Whether you think it's man made or natural (it's not man made), the earth is changing and we are seeing what nature is capable of in Hawaii and these storms. We urge all people to make preparations for weather not in historical record -- even going so far as to harden your dwelling if possible. We believe we are at the beginning of this new weather and geological phenomena.

[sg_popup id=”2″ event=”onload”][/sg_popup]“Be prepared” is a pretty broad order. Prepared for what? How prepared are we talking about, here? If you are new to prepping and readiness as a component in your lifestyle, one of your first actions will probably be to take stock and compare yourself and your stash of supplies to veteran preppers or friends. What you find may discourage you.
Thanks, Viet Nam Vet. People keep calling us a democracy but that is not our form of government. Our founding fathers were reluctant to have a true democracy because they correctly feared mob rule. It doesn’t bother me that government moves slowly. That keeps it from swaying to and fro in shallow breezes. Congress was supposed to be a deliberative body. The Supreme Court was supposed to be an even more deliberative body. Rapid response is only acceptable in the troops coming to your rescue, not in governments.
About the author: Clarence Mason has 35 concurrent years of interdisciplinary experience and training in the public and private sectors of the fire service, law enforcement and investigations. Along with his respected colleagues, Clarence has been an invited speaker/presenter on matters involving National and State Security, Disaster Planning/Management and Risk Assessment. Clarence has extensive knowledge and experience in the building of commercial and residential concrete structures, and as a result of blending these unique experiences, is also the inventor of a patented system designed to provide the levels of protections needed in the building industry. You can learn more about the building products in this article at www.tempestbuildingsystems.com

@ Oldnamvet I can only imagine the horrors you encountered in Vietnam. You had great courage to go over there and fight for your country. Now. To the present day. I don’t want to be a nitpicker, sir, but the US is a Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic. These days more akin to a dog and pony show with Trump as the handler and maybe even more like one of the reality shows that Trump is so fond of. But that’s my personal opinion. I’m not quite sure what the difference would be between a limited and unlimited Constitutional Republic. And I’m not asking these questions to be a jerk but to learn. By definition Canada is a Federal Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy and as we don’t have a Queen on our soil (unless you count Trudeau as a “queen”…LOL!) our head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. We are still tied to Britain even unto this day still being part of the British Commonwealth of Nations. This all a side issue anyways as to the main theme of this article. I just like to make sure we’re all on the same page.

We have our wheat, rice, oatmeal, sugar, beans, etc. in 5 gallon FOOD GRADE buckets. Make sure they are food grade. Our local Winco grocery store sells them. We make sure at least one bucket of each thing has a gamma seal lid on it. If you take the regular lids off and on and off and on they will eventually break then you have a bucket. The gamma seal lids have a screw on/off lid. Never stack buckets with gamma seal lids more than two high. Regular lids can be stacked three high. I know people who stored wheat in 55 gallon drums then found out they had to move. HUGE MISTAKE. We disinfect the buckets with apple cider vinegar then let them air dry before putting food in. We’ve been doing this for 40 years.
Yup, rocket stove DIYs are easy to find, but to each his own and if I can afford to spend $150 on a good knife, I can also afford to spend the same on a rocket stove that’s good looking, lightweight, extremely portable and a one-time buy. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t mind pulling out in front of the sheeple to have a BBQ or go camping with, and that makes me happy one way or another. Just like the rain barrel, I could DIY one myself, but it’s unlikely to look even a fraction as good (especially with my incredibly poor DIY skills), and so I’d rather just buy one and be done with it.
I wrote a blog on this a couple years ago for the Dallas preppers the place to go is Honeyville. Do the math and figure out protein, carbs, vegetables, and fruit per serving and order case lots. To pull together that much it’ll run you about $3000 and then you’ll have what you need. I parcel mine into tubs two tubs will feed a family of four a balanced diet of 1800 cal per day for a month. (See photo.)
Owning a cabin in a resort town gives the well to do an upper hand. When things get uncomfortable (too hot days in Florida for example) they head out for cooler places like Oregon or Washington). Sometimes younger grown children live year round at these second homes while attending out of State University or they may just have young family’s and parents who gave them huge down payments or the like. Such arrangements benefit all. If you think and act as the wealthy do, you don’t have to think like a bug. I have seen poor people spend thousands of dollars on weddings, even birthday’s, they could ill afford; when they might have provided their children and themselves a place to go for vacation, or, for other reasons.
9. Cash. This isn’t exactly a product, but without a supply of cash during an emergency, you and your family could be left high and dry. Set aside some cash each month, in smaller bills, and have it ready to grab if you must ever leave your home in a hurry due to a natural disaster or some other crisis. Figure on having enough to pay for 7 nights at a hotel, 3 or 4 tanks of gas, and enough to pay for a week’s worth of food and other supplies.
Gale, you’re right about the bug eggs. I know it’s a little skeevy to think about but *nearly all* grain products (whole wheat berries, biscuit mix, pasta, cornmeal, anything) already have bug eggs in them. That’s what the dry ice is for; it helps stave off rancidity and it also prevents (ew) hatching! Or you can freeze the items for a week and then store long-term, but that’s a lot more trouble than it sounds like and doesn’t help prolong shelf life.
“Everything started flying out,” she says. Buckets and cans rolled out of the pantry and down the side of the mountain. Hurricane Maria claimed almost all the food Jennifer had stockpiled, in addition to more than 30 chickens, two cows, four pigs, six ducks, and a turkey. “I had prepped for two and a half years, and I ended up with preps for six months,” she says.

Mass is what blocks radiation. Concrete is useful because it’s both dense and strong, so it gets used in a lot of bunker construction. Steel is also useful, but it can become radioactive itself by neutron activation. (So close to ground zero, you’ll need to protect the steel from neutrons – boron or water are the most common ways to reduce neutron flux damage to the protected space.) But there is no reason you can’t use lots of dirt, water, stone, etc. Anything that has mass will attenuate radiation.

There is more to the business than just building a quality product. Aside of the advanced engineering that goes into underground structures, it’s also imperative for a company to have an advanced understanding of geology, excavation and the installation. We’ve been in the underground shelter business for more than a decade and we’ve installed more bunkers and bomb shelters than any of our competitors. This gives us a vast knowledge on every aspect of the business.
I’ve written in a previous article about beans as survival food. No matter how you look at it, the bottom line is that beans are a superfood. They are high in protein and fiber and other nutrients that can help keep you healthy during an extended crisis. They are excellent foods to feed more than one person since one cup of dry beans makes 2-3 cups of cooked beans (depending on the variety). Once you get to the store, make sure you pick three large bags of beans. To diversify your meals feel free to choose your favorite. One thing to mention is that beans are also proper survival seeds. In case you need to start a garden, you already have some of the seeds waiting for you.
Much of what has been said I agree with. What I do take exception is that many think that an EMP Pulse at this point in time would be somehow less devastating then a nuclear attack. A Nuclear attack kills rapidly initially and then other problems would cause a die off. An EMP Blast would not kill masses but it would be equally devastating as all infrastructure fails and mass starvation, lack of resources would have the same effect. Read the Book 1 Second After and it illustrates how bad things could really be. I am not minimizing the devastation of a Nuclear Bomb. I am pointing out that the impact woult probably be close to the same.
Like I said, way up there on my #goals wishlist. Seriously need to make sure if I get this, it goes into a forever home, as it’d be a complete waste to get it or something like it before, but boy is a wood burning stove like this an amazing thing to have. I don’t even cook, but I do eat, and have always found food is tastier when you cook it the “old fashioned way.” Yum.

Let’s face it, practical and usable space quickly becomes a valuable commodity when you are going to spend a significant amount of time in the shelter before venturing topside, and that environment should be comfortable, healthy and space efficient. You are going to be stressed enough if you are in there, and the last thing you need is the additional stress of a cramped, unfriendly environment.

3. Basic bulk ingredients with long shelf lives are a must. Wheat, rice, and beans are versatile, when you add a variety of spices, herbs, and other ingredients and will last for decades. There are food shortages around the world, droughts here in the U.S. that are affecting food production, and it’s likely we’ll experience either shortages, much higher prices, or both in the future.
I run the BSc psychology course at the University of Central Lancashire. I wrote my doctorate on survival psychology and completed the write-up in LA, on the San Andreas fault. I’m a big sci-fi fan, and obviously tales of the apocalypse creep into every great story in the genre, but I only really started to consider my own preparatory behaviours when I began living in a city that experiences major earthquakes and spending my days writing about people dying horribly in disasters. I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be embarrassing, writing what I was writing, if someone found out I’d never looked into prepping myself?
There is more to the business than just building a quality product. Aside of the advanced engineering that goes into underground structures, it’s also imperative for a company to have an advanced understanding of geology, excavation and the installation. We’ve been in the underground shelter business for more than a decade and we’ve installed more bunkers and bomb shelters than any of our competitors. This gives us a vast knowledge on every aspect of the business.
While I’m a big fan of mylar bags and 5 gallon buckets, since my family is just two folks (unless extended family make it to the house in an event), I package things up in 1 gallon mylar bags before placing into the buckets. Allows me to open less food at once to the elements. Sure, I have gamma lids to apply afterwards, and the mylar bags I use have ziplock style tops for resealing, but the less I open to the elements at once the better it will last. To further extend shelf life of opened bags, I have a large supply of small silica gel packs that I can toss a few into open dry good bags. Once I finish the bags I can reuse the packs by gently heating in my Sun Oven.
A lot of electric mountain bikes have hit the market lately. I’ve listed one instead of a regular mountain bike because they can help you travel substantially faster than you would be able to without the extra boost. Of course it’s important to get a bike that will continue to work well even after you run out of electricity, in case you only want to use the boost initially, but not waste your precious post-SHTF electricity on bike speed later, which is why the ability to remove the battery off an electric bike completely is very helpful. No one needs to carry dead weight.
According to developer Robert Vicino of Vivos “We are repurposing the bunkers into the largest survival community on Earth. With one stroke, Vivos xPoint will accommodate as many as 5,000 people to ride out whatever natural or manmade events may come our way. With each bunker providing shelter for up to 20 people, Vivos xPoint makes a life-assurance shelter solution affordable to virtually every family and group. We have already received hundreds of requests from people wanting to claim their own bunker. The project is now underway, and soon each bunker will be under construction to suit the fit and finish that each family/group requires. We are even receiving requests to store precious metals and collections from elite buyers, now moving their treasures out of Europe, in anticipation of WW3 across the EU. “xPoint” was coined as the: Point in time that only the prepared will survive.”
3) the best part? many of them have something that is not advertised on the Internet: 20-lb paper bags of both red and white hard wheat at an amazing price! No, you can’t #10-can them and they can’t ship them, but if you live in a reasonable drive or a friend is going near one, it’s definitely worth a little effort. Again, call ahead and make sure before going.

Clothing and Footwear- Appropriate to your locale and weather. Aside from being able to dress to the environment and weather conditions, you should consider practical utilitarian clothing that will help you succeed. Tough, breathable, flexible, quick-drying clothing paired with gloves and sturdy boots or hiking shoes will help you negotiate dangerous man-made or natural environments and give you a degree of protection against incidental scrapes, pokes and slices.

This country is one of the safest in the world. We have no killer animals. We don’t have earthquakes. There are no major tsunamis. We don’t really have to prep for a huge natural disaster – and there’s very little you could do to prepare for a nuclear event even if you wanted to – so we prep more pragmatically. Suppose you lose your job and money’s an issue. Or the electrical grid goes out and the food chain goes down and all of a sudden every man and his dog is arguing over a bag of sugar. Do you have your own supplies? Do you have the means to cook? And what about keeping warm – could you make a fire? Some of us buy food through an app; groceries are delivered to our front doors. Do people know how to survive without electricity?
Here’s an idea that is very useful. I found at the dollar store some space bags. I used one per person and filled it with winter gear, a multi tool, matches/lighter, a small solar light, a bit of emergency food, an emergency blanket, some basic first aid supplies, etc., then removed the air. If you pack it right, you will be able to fold it over and (I used a bungee cord) place over a strap for easy carry. Now you have an instant (and weather proof) instant kit. I also did this with a pillow (small personal one), blanket, sheet, towel, etc. Not only are they portable and protected, they store in less space.
Your next trip to the grocery can yield extra provision to add to your emergency supply. The next time you have a couple hours of spare time you can scout rural routes out of town, or get in some practice on any number of skills. Even so, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and bewildered staring down all the possible disasters that may occur and all the varied skills to learn and supplies to gather.
While I keep almost all of my food in the basement, with only a small portion in the kitchen pantry, 98% of my basement food storage is in sealed cans, or in mylar bags stored in 5 gallon buckets. That way if my basement floods I can wash the cans with disinfecting solution (10% bleach solution) and relabel using markers. Upstairs I keep my emergency blankets since they aren’t impacted by summer heat where if I tried to store food in the bedrooms it would be at risk from summer temperatures. But as I write this I realize I need to move my water filter and water BOBs out of the basement and upstairs so they don’t get impacted by a flood. Thanks for making me think of this!
Most of these lists you’ll probably opt out of keeping, but there really are benefits to having each and every one. How you organize these lists is also up to you, though there are some tips and tricks I’ve found really helpful for organizing prepper lists – especially those that have to do with tasks and errands to do, though they can be applied to other lists as well if you take the basic principle of them and apply it to your stockpile lists. These tips for sorting your prepper lists can be found here.
One major upside of freeze-dried food is its convenience. Since all its water content has been removed—via a process that involves exposing food to subzero temperatures, while removing the resulting water vapor with a vacuum—it’s easier than canned goods to transport on the fly. To “cook” Wise Company’s six-grain Apple Cinnamon Cereal, you just boil three and a half cups of water, dump in the powdery contents of the bag (minus the oxygen absorber), and cover the pot for 12 to 15 minutes.